New Year’s resolution for Spurs: Keep momentum going

1of2DeMar DeRozan drives past Al Horford in the Spurs’ 120-111 win over the Celtics that closed out 2018. DeRozan and the Spurs won eight of their final 10 games in December to climb back into the Western Conference playoff picture.Photo: Ronald Cortes / Contributor

2of2San Antonio Spurs' Patty Mills celebrates a three-point basket during the second half of an NBA basketball game against the Boston Celtics, Monday, Dec. 31, 2018, in San Antonio. San Antonio won 120-111. (AP Photo/Darren Abate)Photo: Darren Abate, FRE / Associated Press

From his enclave in the northeast, Boston coach Brad Stevens watched with great interest not long ago as the Spurs endured one of the roughest weeks in their history.

An atrocious stretch of three 30-point losses in the span of seven days in late November and early December had fans in San Antonio wondering if this was the year the Spurs finally spent the postseason as spectators.

Some wondered if the Spurs might be better served positioning themselves for a high draft pick rather than expending energy toward what appeared to be a quixotic quest of challenging for a 22nd consecutive playoff berth.

Stevens, meanwhile, viewed the Spurs’ historic week of struggle through a different lens. He was curious to see how the Spurs would manage a bounce-back he saw as inevitable.

“One of the things you pay attention to the most is when they’re going through one of those really tough weeks like they went through this year,” Stevens said. “Everybody who has ever been a player or coach knows the turnaround is going to be fun to watch.”

The Spurs closed 2018 with a 120-111 New Year’s Eve victory over Stevens’ Celtics at the AT&T Center.

It was a fitting conclusion to a month in which the Spurs — as Stevens predicted — fashioned themselves into a playoff contender again.

They won 11 of 16 games in December, including 10 of their final 13.

If coach Gregg Popovich has a resolution for the new year — which for the Spurs begins with what should be an emotional visit from Kawhi Leonard, Danny Green and the NBA-leading Toronto Raptors — it is to keep moving in a positive direction.

“We just go back to work in 2019 and continue to get more consistency and try to get everyone familiar with the system and with each other,” Popovich said. “It’s still a new team, a young team that needs a lot of time. They’re progressing in the right direction, so that’s all I care about.”

As well as the Spurs have played in the past month, all it did was skyrocket them from a low point of 14th in the Western Conference standings to eighth, tied with Sacramento in the loss column.

But they are only two games in the loss column shy of being tied for fourth.

In December, the Spurs led the NBA in field-goal percentage (51.2 percent) and 3-point percentage (42.4 percent) and were third in scoring (115.6 points per game).

Their offensive efficiency (116.6 points per 100 possessions) ranked first as well, while their defensive rating (106.4) ranked eighth.

Nevertheless, Spurs veteran LaMarcus Aldridge said the team enters 2019 still with quite a to-do list.

“There is a lot more to do,” said Aldridge, who moved from center back to power forward against Boston with the injured Rudy Gay out. “Get better defensively, have less breakdowns, stop giving up leads. We have a tendency to let our guard down and give up leads. Dominant teams just try to keep pounding it.”

The Spurs certainly looked dominant in closing out the victory Monday that would stand as an exclamation point to their fabulous December.

Down 52-46 at halftime, the Spurs exploded for a 46-point third quarter that was one of the most prolific in franchise history.

Only twice have the Spurs scored more in a single quarter. The most recent came in April 1993, when they opened against Denver with a 47-point first quarter.

The Spurs shot 19 of 25 in the third quarter Monday (76 percent), a stunning turnaround for a team that missed 21 of its first 27 shots. They were 5 of 5 from 3-point range in the third as well.

“They were tremendous,” Stevens said. “It started with them just physically overpowering us, getting to the rim clearly with the mindset of ‘we’re going to go to the rim and make you stop us.’

“Once we started sucking in, they started spraying it all over and making every shot.”

All but four of the Spurs’ points during Monday’s decisive frame came in the paint, from the 3-point line or from the foul stripe.

Aldridge had 12 of his game-high 32 points in the quarter, while second-year guard Derrick White scored 11 of his career-high 22.

Popovich, as he is wont to do, attributed the Spurs’ most brilliant offensive quarter of the season to increased defensive tenacity.

“We came out in the third quarter pretty aggressively defensively, which allows us to have some pace and run a little bit and move the ball a little better,” Popovich said. “I think our defense is fueling a lot of what we do on offense.”

The Celtics, it seems, were victimized by the Spurs’ year-end turnaround Boston’s coach saw coming from 2,000 miles away.

Stevens credits Popovich — who he says “sets the bar for the rest of us” — for helping shepherd the Spurs out of turmoil.

“His teams always get better,” Stevens said. “His teams always play to their strengths. They always play as a connected unit.”

The year 2018 finished with the Spurs looking more like themselves than they had in quite some time.

They hope to pick up where they left off when they take the floor again in 2019.